I think it now works better than it used to on Telecom ADSL+, Unotelly and Apple TV. Used to get a stutter and occasional downgrading of video quality at some point (usually at the start) of a program but now no stutter and no degraded video quality.

darrenl: I think it now works better than it used to on Telecom ADSL+, Unotelly and Apple TV. Used to get a stutter and occasional downgrading of video quality at some point (usually at the start) of a program but now no stutter and no degraded video quality.

Good to know. I tried to watch on the Apple TV app last night, but got impatient waiting for the stream to start. So instead I used the fallback I used during the outage, where I streamed to my iPhone then AirPlayed to the ATV. The only difference was I went via the DNS this time instead of the VPN. The ATV seems to buffer a LOT better when doing that, resulting in a more consistent viewing experience and no stops to rebuffer the stream.

And unlike when using the VPN, I was able to successfully do that for two shows in a row. Not sure if that was a fluke, or an indication that it is actually more stable. I wouldn't have thought it would make any difference to stability though, as the stumbling block has been the AirPlay portion. So theoretically the delivery mechanism to my iPhone should make no difference.

darrenl: I think it now works better than it used to on Telecom ADSL+, Unotelly and Apple TV. Used to get a stutter and occasional downgrading of video quality at some point (usually at the start) of a program but now no stutter and no degraded video quality.

Good to know. I tried to watch on the Apple TV app last night, but got impatient waiting for the stream to start. So instead I used the fallback I used during the outage, where I streamed to my iPhone then AirPlayed to the ATV. The only difference was I went via the DNS this time instead of the VPN. The ATV seems to buffer a LOT better when doing that, resulting in a more consistent viewing experience and no stops to rebuffer the stream.

And unlike when using the VPN, I was able to successfully do that for two shows in a row. Not sure if that was a fluke, or an indication that it is actually more stable. I wouldn't have thought it would make any difference to stability though, as the stumbling block has been the AirPlay portion. So theoretically the delivery mechanism to my iPhone should make no difference.

Have you rebooted the ATV? Mine did the same yesterday after I made some tweaks at my router- rebooted the ATV and all good.

darrenl: I think it now works better than it used to on Telecom ADSL+, Unotelly and Apple TV. Used to get a stutter and occasional downgrading of video quality at some point (usually at the start) of a program but now no stutter and no degraded video quality.

Good to know. I tried to watch on the Apple TV app last night, but got impatient waiting for the stream to start. So instead I used the fallback I used during the outage, where I streamed to my iPhone then AirPlayed to the ATV. The only difference was I went via the DNS this time instead of the VPN. The ATV seems to buffer a LOT better when doing that, resulting in a more consistent viewing experience and no stops to rebuffer the stream.

And unlike when using the VPN, I was able to successfully do that for two shows in a row. Not sure if that was a fluke, or an indication that it is actually more stable. I wouldn't have thought it would make any difference to stability though, as the stumbling block has been the AirPlay portion. So theoretically the delivery mechanism to my iPhone should make no difference.

What sort of speeds do you get on a Speedtest?

I've probably only ever had my ATV buffer a show once. It usually takes probably about 5 seconds of spinning wheel after I select Play, but it goes sweet from then on. I don't think I get SuperHD though - if I get close to the TV it is pretty ugly, but perfectly fine from the couches.

darrenl: I think it now works better than it used to on Telecom ADSL+, Unotelly and Apple TV. Used to get a stutter and occasional downgrading of video quality at some point (usually at the start) of a program but now no stutter and no degraded video quality.

Good to know. I tried to watch on the Apple TV app last night, but got impatient waiting for the stream to start. So instead I used the fallback I used during the outage, where I streamed to my iPhone then AirPlayed to the ATV. The only difference was I went via the DNS this time instead of the VPN. The ATV seems to buffer a LOT better when doing that, resulting in a more consistent viewing experience and no stops to rebuffer the stream.

And unlike when using the VPN, I was able to successfully do that for two shows in a row. Not sure if that was a fluke, or an indication that it is actually more stable. I wouldn't have thought it would make any difference to stability though, as the stumbling block has been the AirPlay portion. So theoretically the delivery mechanism to my iPhone should make no difference.

What sort of speeds do you get on a Speedtest?

I've probably only ever had my ATV buffer a show once. It usually takes probably about 5 seconds of spinning wheel after I select Play, but it goes sweet from then on. I don't think I get SuperHD though - if I get close to the TV it is pretty ugly, but perfectly fine from the couches.

My ATV is connected via wifi, so I know thats a disadvantage right there. But it's the only option for now. I may soon be in a position to do something about that.

And just to clarify, it is possible to watch a show and have perfect quality for the duration with no pauses to rebuffer. But its more common for a show to have to rebuffer at least once, and for picture quality to fluctuate. And 5 seconds is pretty normal for us to have shows start too. When it gets past 15 seconds or so, thats generally an indication there will be playback issues. This is what happened last night. Admittedly we only tried it once before I decided to go the AirPlay route.

All this is not bad enough to make NetFlix not viable (and is even stable enough to pass the Wife Test), but it was an eye opener to see that these issues disappeared if I streamed to an iOS device and then AirPlayed the last hop to the TV. Its not hard to see why though, as the scrubber shows a significant amount of content buffering ahead of time. I don't see any visible indication of buffering when using the ATV NetFlix app. I assume its doing some, but perhaps it doesn't, which would put playback very much at the mercy of available bandwidth.

AirPlay has its own set of reliability issues though, with it often refusing to start until the router is rebooted, or the Apple TV, or sometimes both. At least that was my experience with VPN. Using it with the DNS is still largely an unknown quantity, but as I stated in my other post I don't expect miracles there.

darrenl: I think it now works better than it used to on Telecom ADSL+, Unotelly and Apple TV. Used to get a stutter and occasional downgrading of video quality at some point (usually at the start) of a program but now no stutter and no degraded video quality.

Good to know. I tried to watch on the Apple TV app last night, but got impatient waiting for the stream to start. So instead I used the fallback I used during the outage, where I streamed to my iPhone then AirPlayed to the ATV. The only difference was I went via the DNS this time instead of the VPN. The ATV seems to buffer a LOT better when doing that, resulting in a more consistent viewing experience and no stops to rebuffer the stream.

And unlike when using the VPN, I was able to successfully do that for two shows in a row. Not sure if that was a fluke, or an indication that it is actually more stable. I wouldn't have thought it would make any difference to stability though, as the stumbling block has been the AirPlay portion. So theoretically the delivery mechanism to my iPhone should make no difference.

Have you rebooted the ATV? Mine did the same yesterday after I made some tweaks at my router- rebooted the ATV and all good.

Pretty sure I tried a reboot. After all that is always the last bastion of hope when ironing out tech problems :-)

We have a customer with Trust Power (kinect.co.nz) who is still experiencing this issue... does anyone know if they use VF as their upstream? Are there any other Trust Power customers here with or without this issue?

getflix: We have a customer with Trust Power (kinect.co.nz) who is still experiencing this issue... does anyone know if they use VF as their upstream? Are there any other Trust Power customers here with or without this issue?

TrustPower is one of the very few NZ ISPs with no official (or known unofficial) presence here on Geekzone. you might find users around but not sure about anyone working for them.